TO-WIT: SAM AND ME
So let me tell you about Sam and me. We met our first day of law school, and immediately came to regard each other with mutual antipathy. “Hiya,” he had said as he first approached me with hand extended, “I’m Sam.” I was so taken aback by the suddenness and directness of his unsolicited self-introduction that I instantly sought refuge in the safety of convention. “How do you do,” I replied, not even bothering to tell him my name. I at once concluded he was a dumb hick, and he at once concluded I was an intellectual snob. It wasn’t the last time I’d be wrong, and it wasn’t the last time he’d be right.
Sam and me, we could not have come from more different backgrounds; I was a prep school/Ivy Leaguer, with a strong preference for cities, string quartets and wine, and he was a backwoods country boy, with a strong preference for unfiltered cigarettes, hootch and large-chested women. And if those things weren’t sufficiently differentiating, Sam’s ancestry is Irish/Native American Catholic and mine is Polish/Russian Jew. None of that, however, stopped us from becoming fast friends fast. In fact, it probably accelerated it; it just gave us more to make fun of.
I remember the exact moment I knew we were true kindred spirits. As is typical for first year law students, we were overwhelmed by the academic demands of our course load. “It’s too much,” I complained to him one day in the student lounge, “how can we possibly keep abreast. “I don’t know,’ he said, “I’ve been trying to figure that out since I was a kid.”
I soon came to see that Sam’s innate loquaciousness and bubbling personality were just perfect for the practice of law, and it was most on display in moot court. He loved it so much and took it so seriously that for him there was nothing “moot” about it. When, as it turned out, we faced off against each other in the moot court finals, he was way better prepared than I was, and he positively ripped me a new one; even worse, he thoroughly enjoyed it.
“Jeez, Sam,” I said to him afterwards, “did you have to be so rough?” “Please don’t take it personally,” he implored, looking every bit the part of a kicked puppy, “I can’t do my best unless I force myself to hate the guts of opposing counsel, even if it’s you.” He could tell by the look on my face that I was still hurt. “Oh, please don’t fret,” he went on, “I’ll eventually forgive you.”
Sam and me, we did well in law school, but he did a little bit better. I graduated tenth in the class, he was eighth. Everyone thought he was complimenting me when for years thereafter he referred to me as a “ten.” It made him laugh; me too.
After graduation, I went to Washington DC to be a crusading government lawyer and Sam went back to his hometown to set up a practice. I soon learned that there was very little crusading to be done as a government lawyer, and so after a pitstop or two along the way I returned home to set up my own practice. Now that we were in adjacent counties, we started spending a lot more time together, especially with our pro sports teams. Hockey, baseball, football, we loved them all. For those of you who have inquired where I learned my extraordinary vulgarity, now you know; at any game, Sam’s creativity flinging vulgar epithets at opposing teams seems limitless. I would share some of them with you, but this is not the place. First off, the editor would never permit it; second, they do tend to singe one’s eyebrows.
Sam has always loved being part Native American. Every time he calls and I say hello, he yells “IT’S THE INDIAN”. The first time he called my office and my secretary inquired as to who was calling, that’s what he screamed. He then let loose with a war whoop so loud that it left her deaf in her right ear for days.
Although at first understandably cautious, she soon came to love Sam too, and one day, noticing his birthday in my calendar, she humorously sent him a bottle of wine from the Iroquois Vineyards. Oh, how I wished then that I had told her Sam was an alcoholic. He was in recovery, sure, but an alcoholic nonetheless. He approached this disease with the same humor and purposefulness that has always characterized his life. When he decided to quit drinking, he joined AA and soon started traveling all over the country to lecture others on the evils of demon rum. He both founded and funded an AA club in his hometown, primarily to help others but also to help himself. You don’t love Sam in spite of his being an alcoholic; it is, contrariwise, one of the reasons that you do.
As I told his wife just the other day, the reason it’s so easy to love Sam is because he loves so easily to begin with. I know there are those of you out there who think we have assembled here today to say goodbye to Sam. Well, let me then be the first to disabuse you of that notion. Say goodbye to Sam, I should say not. What we will do instead is keep him in our heads and in our hearts, we will think about all his kindnesses, his unyielding devotion to friends, family and profession, we will remember the generosity of his spirit and all the wonderful things Sam has done with his life, and we will give thanks every day that we have such a friend.
©2020, S. Sponte, Esq.